The sun gold of 68 terawatt hours in North Rhine-Westphalia

Published on: August 21, 2020 / Update from: August 22, 2020 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

Across Germany, around one in ten terawatt hours of electricity comes from renewable energies from North Rhine-Westphalia, according to the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection (LANUV).

• With over 288,000 systems for generating renewable energies and an electricity volume of 23.3 terawatt hours, over 16 percent of the electricity consumption in North Rhine-Westphalia was provided by renewable energies in 2019. With this amount alone, Bremen, Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania could be completely supplied with electricity.

• 68 terawatt hours of solar power were calculated on the approximately eleven million roofs in North Rhine-Westphalia. So far, around 4 terawatt hours have been realized and therefore only around three percent of the current electricity consumption in North Rhine-Westphalia.

• Densely populated regions such as Cologne, Düsseldorf and the Ruhr area offer particularly great solar power potential. If all potential is implemented, savings of around 30 million tons of CO2 could be achieved. This corresponds to around ten percent of North Rhine-Westphalia's current greenhouse gas inventory.

• The largest expansion, with around 470 megawatts of installed capacity, was recorded last year in the area of ​​photovoltaics. This is the fourth year in a row that photovoltaics has exceeded the previous year's expansion.

“Photovoltaics has a big advantage: I can generate electricity exactly where it is used,” explained LANUV President Dr. Thomas Delschen. “In particular, systems on roof surfaces do not occupy or seal any additional area. This is particularly important in North Rhine-Westphalia, as we have to deal with conflicts over free space here, in the most densely populated federal state in Germany. And it is precisely on these many roof areas that there is still huge unused potential that could be used to produce many more terawatt hours of solar power. “

“With the NRW solar cadastre , it is possible to obtain reliable information about the expected energetic and financial returns of a solar system for every roof in NRW,” explained LANUV President Delschen. “The integration of storage systems and electric cars is also possible for the calculation of a photovoltaic system.” By far the largest share of renewable electricity is still generated by the around 3,700 wind turbines in North Rhine-Westphalia. Last year this was a total of 11.6 terawatt hours. This corresponds to eight percent of total electricity consumption in North Rhine-Westphalia and therefore around half of the electricity generated from renewable sources. In 2019, 37 new wind turbines with an output of 125 MW were installed. This also reflects the declining national trend in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The facts from NRW:

• Electricity generation from renewable energies increased by around 660 gigawatt hours (GWh) from 2018 to 2019

• At 425 GWh, this increase comes largely from photovoltaics, followed by bioenergy and wind

• This is the fourth year in a row that photovoltaics has exceeded the previous year's expansion

• 281,959 PV roof systems and 355 PV ground-mounted systems produced an amount of electricity of 4.8 TWh in 2019

• PV therefore contributed 3.3% to electricity consumption

• 3,708 wind turbines produced 11.6 TWh of electricity in 2019

• Wind energy therefore contributed 8.1% to electricity consumption and is currently the largest source of renewable energy

• 1,686 biomass, sewage gas and landfill gas plants produced 5.9 TWh of electricity in 2019

• Bioenergy therefore contributed 4.2% to electricity consumption

• Electricity generation from hydropower contributed 0.4% to electricity consumption

• Electricity generation from mine gas plants contributed 0.3% to electricity consumption

Share of renewable energies in electricity consumption in NRW:

• Munster 44%
• Detmold 34.4%
• Arnsberg 21.6%
• Cologne 11%
• Dusseldorf 8.6%
• RVR 8%

Share of photovoltaics in electricity consumption in NRW:

• Munster 9.1%
• Detmold 6.1%
• Arnsberg 4.3%
• Düsseldorf 2.4%
• Cologne 2.2%
• RVR 1.6%